8 ms·

There's a large political organization that intentionally sabotages govt effectiveness because they feel that is the best way to eliminate govt. I'm not saying

by dmm 7y ago

There's a large political organization that intentionally sabotages govt effectiveness because they feel that is the best way to eliminate govt. I'm not saying that is the cause of all govt failure in the US bit it's a significant one.

rayiner 7y ago
Having lived Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and DC, where you have to search far and wide to find a republican, but where public services still suck (despite high taxes), I think the causation runs in the other direction. I think if you took a bunch of Danes and made them live in Baltimore for a few decades, they’d vote down any attempt at expanding government services too.
- whenanother 7y ago
  this is so naive. wealth has no borders and they are in every municipality in the us.
  - CryptoPunk 7y ago
    Sounds like you're inventing anti-Republican conspiracy theories to explain the failure of states and cities that have been totally dominated by the Democratic Party for 50 years. In doing so you're preventing the Democratic Party from being held accountable, so that they may be pressured to fix the serious problems that exist with their ideology and political structure, which ensures that more people are drawn to the Republican party, simply as the less unpalatable one of the two. The people who are going to agree with your tenuous explanations for the failure of Democratic-run cities were always going to vote Democrat anyway. It's those people who are on the fence who are not in your political bubble who you are going to push away by turning the Democratic party into one that does not accept criticism and does not operate in the realm of evidence and reality.
    - digitaltrees 7y ago
      Cities can’t overcome national policy that is directed at broadly destroying social safety net programs, disenfranchising large percentages of the population, driving income and asset concentration, eliminating collective bargaining and facilitating automation and international supply chains all of which rob local communities of the resources and opportunities necessary to rebound. A mayor has no chance of fixing the city when the tax base is decimated because of these national policies. For example, consider the housing and mortgage policies over the last 50 years where redlining literally systematically destroyed the real estate and tax base of the very cities you cite as examples of the democratic parties failure to effectively manage city services. When no one can get a mortgage to buy property in a city, prices drop, which means the tax base erodes, which means social services are reduced, which means property values drop further; very nasty negative cycle. Then add a national highway bill that gives preference to suburbs and exurbs and you should clearly see that the cause is not local party mismanagement but broad national policies.
      - rayiner 7y ago
        Sure, cities can’t make up for federal labor laws. But they should be able to run basic municipal services, like schools, transit, etc., that in other countries are overwhelmingly paid for by municipal and local governments. Median household income in Baltimore is about double that of Spain or Italy. Median household of African American households in Baltimore, though much less than that of white households in the city, is still about as much as Spain or Italy. There is an ample tax base there to support good municipal services if the government was capable of doing so efficiently.
        rayiner 7y ago
        (I should clarify—I’m not trying to diminish the magnitude of the problem that black households have half the income of white households in Baltimore. That’s a separate issue from whether Baltimore’s tax base is sufficient to support decent public services—somehow, Spain and Italy make due with less.)
        digitaltrees 7y ago
  - rayiner 7y ago
    The wealthy in all those cities are overwhelmingly Democrats.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      Well, this is a very vague and ambiguous statement, and doesn't have a citation. By "wealthy", you could mean billionaires, you could mean people making a couple million a year, or you could mean people making $300K a year. I believe the latter are a large part of what make large cities wealthy and underpin the tax base, and I'm not so sure they are mostly Democrats.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    dunno about the rest of the cities, but I tried to find some data on wealthy republicans in baltimore. only about 8% of all the people in baltimore are registered republicans. pew forum doesn't even break down republicans by income, presumably because there are so few. [0] it's true that wealthy people dominate politics in pretty much every municipality in the US, but at least in baltimore the shot callers are likely all dems. [0] https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/metro-area/baltimore-metro-area/party-affiliation/#income-distribution-trend https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/metro-are...
  - ijiiijji1 7y ago
    Gore Vidal said the Property party has two wings, D and R.
- gok 7y ago
  That's not really fair. American cities have "high taxes" in the sense that they are higher than in non-cities, but that's really not that much money. New York City raises something like $55 billion / year, but that's only around 4% of its GMP. New Yorkers are still taxed overall rather low for very big city in a very rich country. As for public services sucking...it's easy to point to obvious failings but hard to compare public service suckiness overall. Americans are generally unhappy with their public services but so are most Europeans.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I don't think you can say that Democrats in big cities cause big city problems unless you can point to some big cities that are mostly Republican and do better. It's my impression that if you map political affiliation at a granular level, the US has a consistent pattern everywhere of blue neuron-like clusters everywhere people live, in a sea of much less populated red. I don't think that pattern varies substantially in any region of the country, and the rhetoric about states and other subdivisions being "red" or "blue" obscures the reality. When A and B are correlated, it's not necessarily the case that A -> B or B -> A, it may be that C -> (A and B). Also see: https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Note the assertion that I was responding to, which is the idea that government is ineffective because Republicans sabotage it. To refute that assertion, I pointed out that government services in heavily blue cities in heavily blue states are still bad. That doesn’t mean that Democrats cause those problems, only that those problems exist even where there are few republicans to “sabotage” government. There are urban areas controlled by Republicans, and they don’t do public services any better—they just don’t do public services. E.g. Phoenix.
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      That's because both of the parties are pro-business, against regulation and getting more similar on the key economics all the time. USA hasn't had a left wing party since 60s or so.
      - rayiner 7y ago
        What does being “pro business” or “against regulation” have to do with the quality of public services? These cities and states spend a ton of money on public services—they just do a bad job running them. Besides, Western European countries manage to have good public services even though they: 1) Are more “pro business” in key respects, especially from the point of view of taxation. Western European countries generally have lower reliance on corporate taxation than the US, and much higher reliance on consumption taxes (VAT). They also rely much more heavily on payroll taxes paid for by middle class individuals than on corporate taxes. 2) Are more deregulatory in key respects. There is an E.U.-wide directive that requires rail to be deregulated and opened up to competition. If we had something similar here, instead of having government departments operate commuter rail service in say Virginia, the state would have to separate ownership of the tracks and allow for-profit companies to bid to actually operate the service. In DC, the WMATA Union is fighting tooth and nail to prevent one part of one line from being operated under contract to a private company. By contrast, the entire Stockholm subway is operated by private companies (one being MRT, the Hong Kong rail operator). In another example, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Sweden have school vouchers: https://www.edchoice.org/school_choice_faqs/how-does-school-choice-work-in-other-countries/ https://www.edchoice.org/school_choice_faqs/how-does-school-... > Scholar Charles Glenn noted that “governments in most Western democracies provide partial or full funding for nongovernment schools chosen by parents; the United States (apart from a few scattered and small-scale programs) is the great exception, along with Greece.”2 Or as Diane Ravitch pointed out in a 2001 article, “The proportion of students in government-funded private schools is sizable in countries such as Australia (25 percent), Belgium (58 percent), Denmark (11 percent), France (16.8 percent), South Korea (21 percent), the Netherlands (76 percent), Spain (24 percent), and the United Kingdom (30 percent).” “Businesses” are a total red herring. Those nice public services in Europe aren’t paid for by “businesses” they’re paid for by taxes on the middle class. The middle class agrees to pay those extra taxes, because the government has proven it can run the public services effectively. Democrats would love to raise taxes and expand public services. (See, e.g., the Democratic primary.) They just can’t convince voters that voters would get their money’s worth. Likewise, the idea that public services in US cities is bad because Democrats aren’t far left enough is totally absurd when in Germany you can ride around on a partially-privatized passenger rail system and send your kid to a private school 85% subsidized by the government.

by dmm 7y ago

rayiner 7y ago

Having lived Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and DC, where you have to search far and wide to find a republican, but where public services still suck (despite high taxes), I think the causation runs in the other direction. I think if you took a bunch of Danes and made them live in Baltimore for a few decades, they’d vote down any attempt at expanding government services too.

whenanother 7y ago
this is so naive. wealth has no borders and they are in every municipality in the us.
- CryptoPunk 7y ago
  Sounds like you're inventing anti-Republican conspiracy theories to explain the failure of states and cities that have been totally dominated by the Democratic Party for 50 years. In doing so you're preventing the Democratic Party from being held accountable, so that they may be pressured to fix the serious problems that exist with their ideology and political structure, which ensures that more people are drawn to the Republican party, simply as the less unpalatable one of the two. The people who are going to agree with your tenuous explanations for the failure of Democratic-run cities were always going to vote Democrat anyway. It's those people who are on the fence who are not in your political bubble who you are going to push away by turning the Democratic party into one that does not accept criticism and does not operate in the realm of evidence and reality.
  - digitaltrees 7y ago
    Cities can’t overcome national policy that is directed at broadly destroying social safety net programs, disenfranchising large percentages of the population, driving income and asset concentration, eliminating collective bargaining and facilitating automation and international supply chains all of which rob local communities of the resources and opportunities necessary to rebound. A mayor has no chance of fixing the city when the tax base is decimated because of these national policies. For example, consider the housing and mortgage policies over the last 50 years where redlining literally systematically destroyed the real estate and tax base of the very cities you cite as examples of the democratic parties failure to effectively manage city services. When no one can get a mortgage to buy property in a city, prices drop, which means the tax base erodes, which means social services are reduced, which means property values drop further; very nasty negative cycle. Then add a national highway bill that gives preference to suburbs and exurbs and you should clearly see that the cause is not local party mismanagement but broad national policies.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      Sure, cities can’t make up for federal labor laws. But they should be able to run basic municipal services, like schools, transit, etc., that in other countries are overwhelmingly paid for by municipal and local governments. Median household income in Baltimore is about double that of Spain or Italy. Median household of African American households in Baltimore, though much less than that of white households in the city, is still about as much as Spain or Italy. There is an ample tax base there to support good municipal services if the government was capable of doing so efficiently.
      - rayiner 7y ago
        (I should clarify—I’m not trying to diminish the magnitude of the problem that black households have half the income of white households in Baltimore. That’s a separate issue from whether Baltimore’s tax base is sufficient to support decent public services—somehow, Spain and Italy make due with less.)
      - digitaltrees 7y ago
- rayiner 7y ago
  The wealthy in all those cities are overwhelmingly Democrats.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Well, this is a very vague and ambiguous statement, and doesn't have a citation. By "wealthy", you could mean billionaires, you could mean people making a couple million a year, or you could mean people making $300K a year. I believe the latter are a large part of what make large cities wealthy and underpin the tax base, and I'm not so sure they are mostly Democrats.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  dunno about the rest of the cities, but I tried to find some data on wealthy republicans in baltimore. only about 8% of all the people in baltimore are registered republicans. pew forum doesn't even break down republicans by income, presumably because there are so few. [0] it's true that wealthy people dominate politics in pretty much every municipality in the US, but at least in baltimore the shot callers are likely all dems. [0] https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/metro-area/baltimore-metro-area/party-affiliation/#income-distribution-trend https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/metro-are...
- ijiiijji1 7y ago
  Gore Vidal said the Property party has two wings, D and R.
gok 7y ago
That's not really fair. American cities have "high taxes" in the sense that they are higher than in non-cities, but that's really not that much money. New York City raises something like $55 billion / year, but that's only around 4% of its GMP. New Yorkers are still taxed overall rather low for very big city in a very rich country. As for public services sucking...it's easy to point to obvious failings but hard to compare public service suckiness overall. Americans are generally unhappy with their public services but so are most Europeans.
perl4ever 7y ago
I don't think you can say that Democrats in big cities cause big city problems unless you can point to some big cities that are mostly Republican and do better. It's my impression that if you map political affiliation at a granular level, the US has a consistent pattern everywhere of blue neuron-like clusters everywhere people live, in a sea of much less populated red. I don't think that pattern varies substantially in any region of the country, and the rhetoric about states and other subdivisions being "red" or "blue" obscures the reality. When A and B are correlated, it's not necessarily the case that A -> B or B -> A, it may be that C -> (A and B). Also see: https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/
- rayiner 7y ago
  Note the assertion that I was responding to, which is the idea that government is ineffective because Republicans sabotage it. To refute that assertion, I pointed out that government services in heavily blue cities in heavily blue states are still bad. That doesn’t mean that Democrats cause those problems, only that those problems exist even where there are few republicans to “sabotage” government. There are urban areas controlled by Republicans, and they don’t do public services any better—they just don’t do public services. E.g. Phoenix.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    That's because both of the parties are pro-business, against regulation and getting more similar on the key economics all the time. USA hasn't had a left wing party since 60s or so.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      What does being “pro business” or “against regulation” have to do with the quality of public services? These cities and states spend a ton of money on public services—they just do a bad job running them. Besides, Western European countries manage to have good public services even though they: 1) Are more “pro business” in key respects, especially from the point of view of taxation. Western European countries generally have lower reliance on corporate taxation than the US, and much higher reliance on consumption taxes (VAT). They also rely much more heavily on payroll taxes paid for by middle class individuals than on corporate taxes. 2) Are more deregulatory in key respects. There is an E.U.-wide directive that requires rail to be deregulated and opened up to competition. If we had something similar here, instead of having government departments operate commuter rail service in say Virginia, the state would have to separate ownership of the tracks and allow for-profit companies to bid to actually operate the service. In DC, the WMATA Union is fighting tooth and nail to prevent one part of one line from being operated under contract to a private company. By contrast, the entire Stockholm subway is operated by private companies (one being MRT, the Hong Kong rail operator). In another example, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Sweden have school vouchers: https://www.edchoice.org/school_choice_faqs/how-does-school-choice-work-in-other-countries/ https://www.edchoice.org/school_choice_faqs/how-does-school-... > Scholar Charles Glenn noted that “governments in most Western democracies provide partial or full funding for nongovernment schools chosen by parents; the United States (apart from a few scattered and small-scale programs) is the great exception, along with Greece.”2 Or as Diane Ravitch pointed out in a 2001 article, “The proportion of students in government-funded private schools is sizable in countries such as Australia (25 percent), Belgium (58 percent), Denmark (11 percent), France (16.8 percent), South Korea (21 percent), the Netherlands (76 percent), Spain (24 percent), and the United Kingdom (30 percent).” “Businesses” are a total red herring. Those nice public services in Europe aren’t paid for by “businesses” they’re paid for by taxes on the middle class. The middle class agrees to pay those extra taxes, because the government has proven it can run the public services effectively. Democrats would love to raise taxes and expand public services. (See, e.g., the Democratic primary.) They just can’t convince voters that voters would get their money’s worth. Likewise, the idea that public services in US cities is bad because Democrats aren’t far left enough is totally absurd when in Germany you can ride around on a partially-privatized passenger rail system and send your kid to a private school 85% subsidized by the government.